Various kinds of building construction methods are known in the art, such as wooden, reinforced concrete, steel and block masonry construction methods. As a kind of such construction methods, a bricklaying method is known, in which a brick wall structure is constructed by bricklaying. In general, bricks produced by baking brick clay at a high temperature are highly regarded in architectural design effects or aesthetic effects resulting from their textures, stately appearances, colors and so forth. The bricks also exhibit their excellent physical performances with respect to durability, sound insulation effect, fire resistance efficiency, heat accumulation effect and so forth. Therefore, the bricks have been popularly used worldwide for a long time and widely employed as materials for architectural wall structures.
A conventional bricklaying construction method is a kind of wet construction method, in which bricks are built-up in multiple steps or layers with use of a bonding material such as cement mortar and an appropriate reinforcement such as wire meshes, steel bars or the like. Therefore, the evaluation of construction works with regard to its quantity and quality substantially relies on the skill and technique of bricklayer. Thus, it is difficult to economically carry out a bricklaying construction method at a low price, in comparison with the other types of building construction methods suitable for industrial mass production processes. Further, a wall of architecture constructed with bricklaying mehtod can be preferably used as a wall structure of a residential house since it takes desirable architectural design effect, heat accumulation effect and so forth. However, the brick wall structure has a drawback as to an earthquake resistance in comparison to the other kinds of building structures, such as a reinforced concrete structure.
The present inventor et al. have already developed an earthquake resistant bricklaying construction methods in which bricks are stacked in a multiple layer while pre-stress is introduced into the bricks by tightening force of metallic bolts. Those methods have been proposed in Japanese patent applications Nos. 4-51893, 5-91674, 6-20659, 7-172603 and 8-43014.
According to the bricklaying construction developed by the present inventors et. al, bricklaying works can be surely and accurately carried out in a multiple layer formation without depending on the skill of bricklayers, and a brick wall can be made by a dry-construction method. These methods have advantages in that in-situ clean up works and in-situ material transfer works are simplified or relieved while the upper limit in height of executable brick wall per day is substantially raised. In addition, vertical pre-stress is applied to the vertically adjacent bricks by tightening force of the metallic bolts, so that the toughness and strength of the brick wall can be substantially enhanced against temporary horizontal loading. Thus, the bricklaying construction methods by the present inventors et. al enable mass-productive and cost-reductive provision of brick structure houses and the like, and further, those methods are preferably applicable to walls of residential houses and the like so as to effect sufficient earthquake resistance performances.
However, the prior research and study have been mainly directed to bricks adaptable for bricklaying construction of a standard straight wall, whereas the bricks have to be adapted to a wide variety of architectural details and joint structures in practical building structures. For instance, walls of actual buildings are provided with various types of partial structures, such as internal corners, external corners, columnar configurations, openings and so forth, but the bricks which have been studied or researched are not preferably applicable to such architectural details or structures.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a bricklaying structure and a bricklaying method which can be adapted to a variety of building structural details such as corner, opening and columnar configurations.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a brick manufacturing method for manufacturing bricks adaptable to a variety of building structural details such as corner, opening and columnar configurations.